Comaq presario cq 71 cursor is frozen. PC shop man siad it was poor battery. Booted up from mains and cursor worked fine until recently. Mistakenly left battery in and powered down to hibernate. Now cursor is frozen regardless booted up on mains or battery. Tried throwing it on floor but cursor still won't budge. Any helpful suggestions?

Yeah ..you have to disable the power saving mode..This is the only thing related with the battery usage that may disable the cursor..o r..just reinstall the touch pad..
to do that download its driver and run it into computer ..
here is the link
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en&product=3795238&
just select eh operation system and download the touch pad driver..
or go to control panel ..open the touch pad icon ..and in there select default settings ..or enable the cursor again ..if it is disabled..
if this is not working ..try reinstall it like I said ..It always starts a clean installation from the factory settings ..
Avoid hibernate it ..cause will always preserve the last settings ..just close it proper each time ..this way it will boot and recognize devices each time from the start ..